ARGENTINA | 03-03-2018 09:28

Luciano Benjamín Menéndez: brutal master of life and death

Considered to be the 'master of life and death' in Córdoba during the dark days of the last military dictatorship, Menéndez was given a record 14 life sentences for his crimes against humanity. He remained unrepentant.

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“There was no clandestine repression”, once said the unrepentant repressor. | Cedoc

Luciano Benjamín Menéndez,
the former general
and commander
of the Third Army Corps
who was handed a record 14
life sentences for atrocities
committed during the last military
dictatorship (1976-1983),
died on Tuesday. He was 90
years old.

Menéndez, an infamous and
unrepentant figure, was accused
of committing more than
800 crimes against humanity
during the dark days of the dictatorship,
including torture and
murder at clandestine detention
centres in Córdoba.

The former leader of the Córdoba-based,
15,000-strong
Third Army Corps was hospitalised
in Córdoba’s military hospital
on February 7, where he
had been in a critical condition
due to complications from a liver
condition.

The Córdoba-based newspaper
La Voz del Interior described
Menéndez as “the master of life
and death” in the region. He
ruled the province with an iron
hand, helping to decide who
would be tortured and killed. He
was currently serving his sentences
under house arrest, with
another trial against him in the
works. He would have been 91
years old on June 19.

The Full Stop Law – which
granted dictatorship-era criminals
relief from investigations
into their crimes – initially
meant Menéndez did not face
prosecution for his actions,
although he was eventually imprisoned
for various crimes
against humanity.

However, in 1990, he was officially
pardoned by former president
Carlos Menem, days before
a further decision and sentence
would have been handed
down. In 2005, the Justice Department
declared the pardon,
along with others affecting repressors,
unconstitutional and
he was charged with crimes
against humanity.

Menéndez, nicknamed “the
jackal” and “the hyena,” holds
the dubious honour of being the
Argentine general with the most
life sentences in the country’s
history.

In a key 2006 trial, he was
found guilty of 282 disappearances
of people at the La PerlaLa
Ribera concentration camp
in Córdoba, along with 52 homicides,
260 kidnappings, and 656
cases of torture.

UNREPENTANT

During his defence, before
being read his sentence for this
case, the ex-general expressed:
“We hold the dubious honour of
being the first country in the
history of the world that judges
their victorious soldiers who
fought against the Marxist guerrillas
and defeated them on the
orders and on behalf of their
compatriots.”

He remained unrepentant for
his crimes, declaring in one trial
that “there was no clandestine
repression.” Under his logic, the
victims of his crimes against
humanity were criminals themselves.

His hatred laid no bounds on
his behaviour – in an emblematic
photo taken by DyN, Menéndez
was caught with a knife in
his hand while he sprang at a
group of protesters in 1984.
Among the military he was a
known hardliner, principally
alongside the former Navy commander-in-chief
Emilio Eduardo
Massera.

Additionally, the repressor
spurred a coup within the military
coup. Menéndez revolted
on September 28, 1979, in the
north of Cordoba but, against
the strength of Jorge Rafael
Videla’s forces, ended up surrendering
and was jailed for 90
days in the cell at a base camp
in Curuzú Cuatiá, Corrientes,
Página/12 reported.

A steadfast proponent that
Argentina enter into war with
Chile over the Beagle Channel
Conflict, Menéndez was known
for uttering the phrase: “If we
let the chilotes attack us, we’ll
run them to Easter Island, the
toast at the end of the year will
be held in the palace of La Moneda
and after that we’ll piss the
champagne into the Pacific.”

Menéndez also disappeared
books in 1976 when he orchestrated
a burning of books as
massive as it was strict. The
purpose, as the repressor himself
put it, was to impede “the
continued betrayal of our children”
and “destroy by fire” the
“pernicious documentation
that affects intellect and our
ways of Christianity.” Among
the many books reduced to ashes
were those of Julio Cortá-
zar, Pablo Neruda and Gabriel
García Márquez.

Menéndez was born into a
military family in 1927 in San
Martìn (the Greater Buenos Aires
district housing Campo de
Mayo, the chief Army base) – his
uncle General Benjamín Menéndez,
who also lived to be 90,
headed the 1951 coup attempt
against the Juan Domingo Perón
presidency. A precocious
cadet, he graduated from military
academy at the age of 18
and was a cavalry general at 45.